IndyCar boss Randy Bernard announced last weekend that he has hired Tony Cotman (below) to serve as project manager and develop the 2012 rules for the series’ new Dallara-Honda formula. I’ve known Cotman for almost 20 years and he’s a good man who’ll serve Bernard and IndyCar well.

Cotman is a Kiwi who worked as a race mechanic for many years before becoming Team Green’s team manager and then Andretti-Green’s vice-president of operations. He joined Champ Car in 2005 as vice-president of operations and race director. He worked for the series for three years, overseeing the introduction of the Panoz DP-01 spec car for 2007, its final season. During his time at Champ Car, Cotman joined the FIA’s circuits and safety commission.

After Champ Car’s failure and absorption by the IRL, Cotman (below with Paul Tracy) became that series’ vice-president of competition before leaving in 2009 to form his own consulting company, focusing on race track design and safety. This year he was appointed by Bernard to be a member of the ‘Iconic’ committee that determined the 2012 IndyCar formula. He is also race director for the Indy Lights series.

So again, I have no doubt Cotman will do a great job in writing the 2012 rules. But IndyCar still needs an experienced racing engineer who’s designed many different and successful cars, somebody like John Barnard, Gordon Murray or former Eagle designer John Ward. To attract ‘aero kit’ builders and other engine manufacturers to compete against Honda and help develop the new formula over time to produce the leading edge IndyCar deserves, the organisation needs a man like Barnard, Murray or Ward.

Bernard has a near-revolt on his hands from some team owners who financed and supported the spurned Delta Wing concept. They believe the Delta Wing was a lost opportunity that could have provided IndyCar with a unique identity.

None have made any public comment, but behind the scenes they are not happy campers. They respect Cotman and can work with him but would feel more encouraged with the additional hiring of an experienced engineer with big-picture thinking, capable of fully understanding and embracing energy recovery systems, alternative fuels and the wave of new technology that’s beginning to move through the global automobile industry.

But IndyCar’s biggest issue remains its dwindling TV ratings and race day crowds, and an extremely weak footprint in the USA’s national media as a whole. TV ratings have been in decline for many years and have reached the point of being barely measurable for most races. Nor do many of the races draw much of a crowd, and the oval races are merely one-day events with no crowds at all for practice and qualifying.

These are not new problems. They’ve been there for years and have resulted in it being darn near impossible to sell sponsorship. Most teams are struggling to stay afloat and even Roger Penske is feeling the pinch. Despite dominating this year’s IndyCar Series Penske has been having a tough time selling sponsorship and his team faces the prospect of cutting back from three to two cars next year.

So most people expect Tony Cotman to do a great job for IndyCar. But everyone acknowledges that American open-wheel racing faces much bigger challenges.

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The inaugural Formula 5000 race in 1975 at Long Beach.

I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of covering all thirty-four Long Beach Grands Prix, from the inaugural Formula 5000 race back in 1975 through eight Formula One races from 1976-’83 and twenty-five CART or Champ Car races from 1984-2008. This year’s race was Champ Car’s swansong in the beachside California city as the defunct organisation’s Panoz DP01-Cosworth turbos raced for one last time before the unified Indy Racing League arrives in town next year. So Long Beach ‘08 marked the end of a quarter century of the sweet sound of turbocharged engines wailing through the sunny California air and as the drivers cruised into the pits at the end of the race and the turbocharged engines – the signature song of Indy car racing – fell silent, the moment brought tears to some eyes.

For the next year or two, the familiar whine of Cosworth’s turbo V8 will be replaced by the harsh, coarse noise from Honda’s much less powerful, naturally-aspirated V8 IRL engine and there’s no doubt that the vast majority of fans and competitors would love to see the IRL adopt a more powerful, turbocharged engine formula as part of its new formula for 2010 or 2011.

1976 Grand Prix of Long Beach, California, USA. March 26 – 28 1976. Niki Lauda (Ferrari 312T), 2nd position.

Like Mario Andretti, I’m among those who believe the new IRL formula must create spectacularly fast and demanding cars to drive. We think there must be a much greater difference between straightaway and cornering speeds. We also believe the new formula must inspire competition between engine and chassis manufacturers as well as adopting some serious elements of green technology. Over the upcoming month of May at Indianapolis I will discuss these issues with many people in the sport and will write about these conversations in the pages of Motor Sport later this year.

And as I reminded many people at Long Beach this year, back in 1975 at the inaugural Formula 5000 race – won by Brian Redman in a Haas/Hall Lola T332C-Chevrole – the garage area boasted no fewer than forty-two cars built by eight different car constructors. Thirty-nine of those cars started the two qualifying heats and because Bill Simpson’s Berta didn’t make it the first Long Beach race featured seven different car builders making this year’s race pale in comparison.

Brian Redman with the trophy from the Formula 5000 race in 1975.

If American open-wheel racing is to enjoy a resurgence under the IRL’s unified banner it must rediscover this essential nature of the sport. The IRL’s new formula for 2010 or 2011 must dispel the banalities of spec-car racing and attract a trove of competitive engine and chassis builders. That’s the only way Indy car racing and Long Beach will thrive again.

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It was sad to talk last week with each of Derrick Walker (above), Paul Tracy (below) and Carl Haas. All three had tales of woe to tell about how the fallout from Champ Car’s demise has affected them. Walker’s team finds itself without the sponsorship to be able to race in this year’s unified IRL series, Tracy is out of a ride and has no idea what or even if he will race this year, and Haas admits to losing a pile of money on his investment in Panoz DP01 parts and equipment.

As everyone knows, Walker has lost his sponsor and driver Will Power to the renamed KV Racing Technology team and is going to court to attempt to get some restitution from Craig Gore. Walker has not laid-off any employees and will run three Atlantic cars this year but he’s looking at diversifying into the A1GP series or sports car racing or any other sensible form of motor sport that will pay the bills.

Meanwhile, Paul Tracy awaits word from Jerry Forsythe about how Tracy might buy his way out of his multi-year contract or find some other resolution to his dilemma. At the moment Tracy is a pedestrian, without a ride in the IRL. He’s assuming, but doesn’t know if he’ll race at Long Beach. “I feel like I’m standing on the platform and the train’s driving off,” Tracy remarked. “I feel like the guy who got a new suit for the big date and I’m primed and ready for the prom, and she didn’t show up.”

And then there’s Carl Haas (above), a proud man who, with his partner Paul Newman, built one of America’s most accomplished and respected race teams. Over half a century Haas has made his living entirely from racing, selling cars, parts and service to all kinds of formulas and categories. Haas admitted last week that he has lost more than two millions dollars on his investment in Champ Car’s failed Panoz spec-car project. Like Walker, Haas has remained loyal to his people and he has not laid-off any employees.

The good news is that Cristiano da Matta (above) enjoyed a very good first run in a race car last week since his near-fatal accident at Elkhart Lake in the summer of 2006. Da Matta tested one of Bob Stallings’ Gainsco Riley-Pontiac Grand-Am cars at the new 2.5-mile Eagles Canyon road circuit in Texas and after two days and around 140 laps Cristiano was bubbling with enthusiasm. Da Matta will make his return to racing at Laguna Seca in May, driving a second Stallings’ Grand-Am car beside series champions Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty. Da Matta will share his car with old friend and former team-mate Jimmy Vasser.

“It will be a good way to get back,” da Matta remarked. “I won’t be able to fight for the championship this year, but just to get back to it and next year be serious about the job of going for the championship, it’s very exciting. And to do it with Jimmy who is not only a very good driver but also a very good friend of mine – and he’s also very fired-up about it – it’s like a dream.”

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As NASCAR’s Big Show moves from Daytona to southern California, news broke this week that IRL and Champ Car are on the brink of announcing a formal merger. The great chimera of reunification of American open-wheel racing is at hand after a bitterly debilitating twelve-year civil war.

Will this desperate, eleventh-hour deal save Indy car racing and mark the beginning of a long road to a successful rebirth? Or will the damage done prove too difficult to repair?

Obviously, it would have been much healthier to have done the deal three or four months ago before both series announced their 2008 schedules with their own contracts and commitments, and there’s sure to be plenty of fall-out from stitching Champ Car’s remnants into the IRL at this late date. What of the dozen Champ Car races and their local fans and media left in the lurch, disenfranchised by reunification?

What about Panoz and Cosworth, also apparently left with the short end of the stick? And it will also be a terrible thrash to get Dallara chassis and Honda engines into the hands of Champ Car’s teams so they can do some basic testing before they start racing the cars and engines against the IRL teams. You can imagine plenty of room for grumbling from many sides.

The big challenge remains the same. Leadership is desperately needed to heal the wounds, get the series going again in the right direction and create the right formula for the future that will attract engine manufacturers, car builders, sponsors, fans and serious media coverage.

The first step appears to have been taken. The next series of steps will be even more difficult.

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